Horton Mine Genuine Mercury
by angry-ace
Summary: Jack and Crutchie go to an abandoned and haunted mine on their honeymoon. Jack goes in alone.
1. Chapter 1

Jack and Crutchie stood outside the mouth of the Horton mine. "You know Jack when you said you wanted to honeymoon out west I'd thought you'd be content with going to Santa Fe. I didn't realize you'd make me drive 950 miles further to visit an abandoned mineshaft."

"You're just scared," he teased back. "Come on babe, this is so cool!"

"No it's not." Crutchie meant it. It wasn't just reading the " **DANGER: UNSAFE MINE"** sign that put him off from going further. It wasn't just the pooled water or inaccessibility to him because of his disability. Crutchie could feel the negative energy coming from the mine; never in a million years would he be willing to enter.

Jack swung his leg over the short fence blocking the mine. "You coming or what?"

"Absolutely not."

"Your loss."

"Of what, getting tetanus?" Crutchie yelled after him.

Jack snorted in reply. He saw Crutchie sit in the dirt and use his phone, likely reading on his Kindle app. Recently he had been enthralled by the Vango series. He had read the first book on the plane and had almost finished the second on the drive from New Mexico to Nevada. While Jack hunted for ghosts in an abandoned mineshaft; his boyfriend read about a quest for vengeance in the 1940's. Technology really was the ultimate bridge.

Jack used his phone flashlight to light up the dark shaft. He saw chains dangling from the ceiling; some of them were attached to yellow ventilation tubing while others hung free. He noticed a swinging chain; it was only swaying gently really. He let out a chain then started moving rapidly back and forth. "Crutchie you've got to see this."

"No I don't," Jack heard Crutchie's call waft faintly into the tunnel.

"Coward!" he teased his husband as he proceeded into the tunnel. He stepped into a particularly deep patch of mud that sucked his foot in up to his ankle. He pulled it free and examined the sticky mud that coated his boot. He made a face of revulsion at the smelly grey mud. "Ugh."

He made it all the way into the back of the shaft before he starting feeling the evil that his husband had been wise enough to avoid. It weighed down on him from all sides and chilled him to the bone. He finally understood; it was time to turn back.

He turned to go. There was speaking around him. "Mayer where are the children? Mayer where are our kids?"

"Mom! Davey, Sarah help me."

He heard panicked breathing and coughing and even footsteps. Jack ran but mud was sucking him down. He was forced to prise his feet from the mud with each step. He made it to the mine's exit only to be slapped by the chains. He rushed for the exit but chains wrapped around him, preventing his exit.

"Crutchie!" he screamed in terror. That was what finally caught Crutchie's attention, but it was too late. Jack was dragged back into the shaft by an unseen force and suddenly the mouth of the abandoned mine finally gave way to time and decay, or other forces, and collapsed.


	2. Chapter 2

"Jack! Jack can you hear me‽" Crutchie screamed from outside the mine. He struggled to stand using his crutch and walked over to the former opening of the shaft.

He witnessed no reply.

"Jack!" He screamed again.

 _Oh my God,_ he thought, _He's hurt or else he'd answer me._ "Baby!" he cried. "Baby please answer me!"

He pulled out his cell phone and tried to dial 911 but the call failed. He tried again, and again the call failed each time.

"Jack baby. Jack I'm coming to get you; I promise."

Crutchie did the only thing he could think to do and stuck his crutch between rocks and pried them apart. A few tumbled to the ground, and he stumbled back as quickly as he could lest one crush his feet. He tried again to topple the barrier, this time succeeding. Rocks piled around him, and Crutchie tremblingly stepped over them and into the cavern. As he entered he noticed the sign from before was mostly covered in rocks, but he could still read some of the big black letters " **DANGER".** He thought maybe he should listen.

Crutchie wandered into the mine warily using the flashlight on his phone to guide him. He spent most of his energy focusing on the ground so that he could avoid the deepest mud and worst of the terrain, but when he looked up he was shocked to see a full-bodied apparition.

He stared at the ghost and the ghost stared back. "You can see me?" the child ghost asked.

"Yes I can." He wiped a sweaty hand on his pants. "I'm Crutchie."

"I'm Les," the ghost replied.

The young ghost spit into their palm and stuck it out for Crutchie to shake. Crutchie did take the hand in hesitant shock and he shook it. After pulling back he saw that his hand had a small spot of sticky black ectoplasm from the ghost's spit. Crutchie asked a question that he would later look back on as foolish. "Ghosts areㅡ ghosts are real?"

The ghost looked offended. "Just because I'm dead don't mean I ain't just as real as you. You don't see me asking if humans are real even though I ain't seen one in years, except for the one that just came in splashin' around."

"Wait you saw him? I need help finding him. Please he's my boyfriend!"

"I don't wanna go back there, there's too much smoke inside. Would you please make sure my mom and pop get get okay?"

Crutchie heard the noises of a lumbering man and turned to face it. Another full-bodied apparition approached them menacingly.

"There you are little man," the new ghost spoke evilly.

Crutchie was frozen in place, too terrified to move. "Jack," he mumbled. But the ghost did not see him in fact, it walked right through him towards Les. Crutchie turned in time to see the ghost wrap it large hands around the small boys neck, leaving nothing but smoke in their wake as they disappeared into thin air.

"Jack. Jack needs me," Crutchie thought aloud. He gathered his courage and forced his feet onward through the smoke left in the wake of the disappeared ghosts, coughing on the smoke and decay of the mine. As he moved deeper into the mine it became harder and harder to see and breathe. The smoke stung his eyes and blurred his mind, but he could hear coughing and it only made him more determined to venture further into the mine.

"Jack!" he wheezed. "Jack is that you?"

"Crutchie‽" he heard. "Babe can you help me? I'm trapped!"

"I'm coming my love; I see you." Sure enough through the grit, grime, dust, and smoke of the abandoned mine, Crutchie could see Jack pinned beneath a large pile of small boulders. He began to pry each one off one by one.

"What the hell happened‽" Crutchie asked as he lugged boulders off his husband.

"I don't know. I was trying to leave but it's like the mine wouldn't let me leave. My feet stuck and those dangling chains grabbed me and―" Jack cut himself off, too distraught to speak.

Crutchie pulled the last boulder off of Jack. "It's okay babe, I'm here." Crutchie wrapped his arms around his husband tightly for a moment. "I love you so much. You're safe." When they finally pulled apart Crutchie found a silvery colored liquid on his hands. He frowned in distaste and wiped the liquid on his pants.

He helped Jack to his feet. "Let's get out of here babe." The couple fled from the mine as quickly as they could between Jack's injuries and Crutchie's disability. When the reached the mouth of the cave they hurried into their car and drove like Hell in the direction of the nearby town. When cell reception finally returned to Crutchie's phone, he used it to pull up directions to the city hospital.

After parking they took a shuttle to the emergency room, both too exhausted to walk. They thanked the driver and stumbled inside, both looking a mess. When the nurses saw the state of them they immediately gave them clipboards and told them they'd treat them as soon as the forms were filled out. Crutchie and Jack both had trouble with the forms, too shellshocked by what they'd seen to write without shaking hands. By time they had finished they both had splitting headaches.

A nurse gestured for Jack to follow her and a few minutes later another one came for Crutchie. He followed his nurse into a room and was handed a hospital gown to change into and was left with promises that a doctor would be in with him soon.


End file.
